Rocketman
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Samantha Carter thinks about one of her childhood heroes on K'tau while the sun is red... and ponders the mysteries of his career which cast a shadow over him.


I own neither Stargate nor Quatermass - both of them are remarkable science fiction franchises belonging to their own respective owners. I just own this crossover as I'm trying to bring them together.

Feel free to drop me a line to tell me what you think.

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Rocketman.

Samantha Carter looked up at the rocket that was being prepared, feeling her heart race with excitement just looking at it. Okay, so the current events were not ideal, but if it wasn't for all the years of discipline she had acquired from her time in the US military, then Samantha would be rushing to the rocket and actually touching it as though it were one of those aircraft in those many museums that her dad had dragged her and her brother around.

She definitely hoped this worked; the rocket was the latest design, and it had to work in order to inject the star with HU-2340 in order to restore the sun to its original state; okay, she knew that it was possible for the people of K'tau to live on a world circling a red sun, but even she didn't know what could happen in the long term if they left them like this.

Part of Sam was glad that had the chance to clean up their own mess in this manner as well; ever since that mess on Cimmeria where they had returned to the planet following Gairwyn's message through the 'gate that the Goa'uld had invaded the planet after SG1 had left following the destruction of Thor's Hammer so they could rescue Teal'c, Sam and the others had sworn to always be cautious around worlds under the protection of the Asgard because they had no idea what to expect from the planet's defences which were designed to keep the Goa'uld out, even if the Protected Planet's Treaty was not what it had probably once been.

The Asgard had their hands full with their war with the Replicators. They didn't have the resources to handle both the treaty and the Replicators. Logically they decided to focus their attention on the Replicators, however, Sam knew the Asgard were fully prepared to come and deal with the Goa'uld whenever they could.

Sam only wished the Asgard went to every single System Lord and wiped them out, it would save so much trouble and hassle for Stargate Command who were always concerned their people might run into the Goa'uld every time they stepped through the 'Gate. Though it would also make the Asgard's lives a little easier as well.

Sam didn't like the thought of committing genocide, but the Goa'uld deserved it since they had committed so many atrocities. They had committed genocide against races who had been immune to their attempts to take them over as hosts. Had the Goa'uld cared when the Goa'uld slaughtered the people of Singh, a world full of people from Indian descent? Or the aliens from a planet in a binary star system that Teal'c had related about once?

But on Cimmeria, Sam and the rest of the team had managed to save Teal'c from Asgard technology, but they had left without even thinking about what the consequences could be, and Heru'ur had appeared, and he had begun to subjugate the planet. San did not want anything to happen to the K'tau even if their religious attitudes grated on the nerves.

There was a lot of noise coming from them already since they believed their end was near, but as long as the rocket was under the protection of SG1 then their plan of returning the sun to normal would work. Sure, it would be easier if their hope the Asgard could do something had gone through, but looking back Sam knew it would have been the Asgard coming to once more clean up the mess. But it was just so frustrating that such an advanced alien race who had problems of their own with the Replicators, who were constantly pushed back by the Asgard whenever the alien race came up with some new ship or technology, only for it to be consumed because the Asgard never used the type of tactic Sam herself had come up with when Thor had taken her to his home galaxy to find a way of stopping the Replicators from assaulting his homeworld simply because they couldn't think in that manner, was so bogged down by red tape of the treaty they refused to help.

In some ways she could understand where the Asgard were coming from, but surely it wouldn't have been a bad idea for one ship like one of those cruisers that regularly fought against the Replicators could be spared, and travel around the Milky Way, checking on the various worlds under their protection to make sure the Goa'uld didn't get ideas.

Sam knew the Goa'uld would love nothing more than to enslave more bands of humans that had been dragged off of Earth in the first place, but the Asgard's protection prevented it.

She was also frustrated even though she knew how silly it was for her to be frustrated in the first place, of how everyone they met on their travels through the galaxy seemed to be accusatory whenever something happened with the 'Gate; it wasn't SG1's fault the DHD of the 'Gate had been lost during that chaotic mess when Ra had enslaved the Egyptians, but she and the other scientists back home had taken Freyr's words on board, and were even now preparing a computer program to help screen out unwanted elements dragged through the wormhole during travel. She did not want anything like this happening again.

Troubles with the 'Gate and intergalactic politics aside, Samantha was actually pretty impressed with the rocket.

Rockets had always fascinated Samantha. Anyone who knew her knew that pretty quickly - her enthusiasm about the rocket on the K'tau planet had proven that, but if they thought she was interested in rockets because of NASA, then they would be in for a shock.

No.

She was fascinated by the work of Professor Bernhard Quatermass, a British rocket scientist.

Okay, granted; the British Rocket Group would never be as large as NASA, but Samantha did not care. She had discovered Quatermass long before she had discovered NASA, and she had read his books about rockets, and how the rocket group he'd formed in the aftermath of the Second World War had tried to pioneer the technology to get humanity into space.

Sam knew Quatermass had succeeded. His research had opened doors, and his efforts had paved the way for other astronauts and missions into space. Thanks to Quatermass, the space program that followed had met with a great deal of success. Quatermass' theories about rocket travel had allowed for humanity's 'current' knowledge base, and even though it would take centuries for a rocket built by current technology to reach a habitable system the Stargate network in the Milky Way made them redundant, Sam had a feeling if the British scientist was still alive, he would have been fascinated and amazed.

While big organisations such as NASA, while impressive, had done a vast amount of work, and had the means and the resources the British Rocket Group didn't have in order to go too far, Sam still felt the smaller organisation was better than NASA since she had always held an admiration and a soft spot for the 'backyard' scientist. No, that wasn't fair. In Samantha's mind, there was nothing backyard scientist about Bernhard Quatermass.

And yet…

Samantha's smile faded a little bit as she recalled one of the books Quatermass had printed about the possibilities of life on other worlds. Sam had always wondered about the 'theories' Quatermass had postulated about life on other worlds, like the possibility of there being some form of insect-like life-form on Mars or some form of life which merged human bodies together into one single mass without any kind of deformation, and metamorphosed it into a plant-based organism along with a host of other things.

Sure, the 'theories' seemed plausible and Quatermass had written some detailed ideas about how and why such things could be possible, but between now, when Sam had first begun travelling through the Stargate, and when she had been a child, there was something not quite right about the theories and the facts Quatermass had written to support them. None of it made any sense - the facts seemed too fantastic, and yet they had been plausible because Quatermass had written the 'theories' and the 'facts' in such a way to suggest they weren't theories but were possible.

Okay, when Sam had been younger she had simply assumed that the older rocket scientist was making guesses, or at least coming up with clever scenarios, but at the time it had still not made any sense. Quatermass's scenarios, if they were indeed scenarios, seemed too well thought out to be idle speculation.

But now Sam couldn't help but wonder if Quatermass had some experience with alien life. It would make sense and answer several questions she'd always had concerning his work; she had thought quite a bit about Quatermass after that mess she and the rest of SG1 had faced when Apophis had tried to destroy Earth, when Kinsey and Samuels had tried to shut the whole thing down, especially since they were in those Goa'uld gliders, and she had actually seen her world for the first time ever in real life.

Even in real life if you wanted to see space and explore the solar system, you had to endure all kinds of checks and training. For Sam, the entire experience had been a dream come true, and it had put her in mind of Bernhard Quatermass. So many rocket designs and principles were derived from his work and his theories about rocket propulsion, and when she had been in space she had thought about the man although truthfully when she had travelled through the 'Gate to Abydos for the first time, she had felt quite let down; she had always hoped that in homage to Quatermass' work humanity would explore space in rocket-like ships. But she had become accustomed to it, although there were times she was still upset the galaxy was open up to them now, all they'd need to do was step into a wormhole almost as easily as they could walk through a house or catch a subway to a distant station.

She couldn't help but wonder, now she was in that kind of speculative mood, just how Quatermass would have taken the galaxy if he were still alive and was involved with the program. Would he love it? Would he be happy or sad that although he had worked for so long on rocketry, it had been superseded by the Stargate? Would he be excited by the alien life that enriched the galaxy? How would he take the fact the Goa'uld had snatched so many humans from Earth during their reign of terror over their world, scattering them throughout the galaxy like seeds to be used as slaves for their various mini-empires and using them for hosts?

Sam could guess he would be horrified at the notion, but if her theories were right then Professor Bernhard Quatermass had been more aware of alien life than the books probably were, and she couldn't but wonder if the British government had censored them in the same way her own government continued to censor the truth about the program and about alien life to the rest of the world.

Sam shook her head and looked up at the rocket. It was an experimental design. It was composed of both human and Goa'uld technology, albeit it was a very sub-grade version of Goa'uld technology. The Program had learnt from its mistakes ever since Jack and Teal'c had flown that test fighter into space, only to end up trapped thanks to that recall device Apophis had installed in the technology.

But this rocket was designed purely for exploration. The Goa'uld technology was only installed to make the rocket more efficient; its engines were more powerful, its sensors which were designed to gather an enormous quantity of excellent information, but for now it should definitely help with the K'tau situation.

As she looked up at the rocket, she wondered how Quatermass himself would feel about the inclusion of alien technology. Part of her wondered if he would be annoyed humanity was relying on the quick and easy option instead of putting in the work for themselves, but the rest of her imagined that while he might be put out at first, he would be excited that Earth had the technology to explore further beyond the moon.

Later, when the rocket was destroyed by K'tau suicide bombers (if that was not extreme, Sam honestly did not know what wasn't), she was furious. Not just because the K'tau had just destroyed their only hope, but because they had destroyed a rocket Bernhard Quatermass would have been proud to witness.


End file.
